WHITEMARSH — After a close first quarter, Plymouth Whitemarsh, led by a swarming defense and stellar bench play, went on to easily handle Cheltenham, 40-13.

“I thought the girls were really active. We got big quality minutes out of our bench players,” explained PW coach Dan Dougherty after the game. “We were on a short bench tonight. One of our players, Rachel Konowal wasn’t in the game, so we were limited to begin with. Laurie Givnish got into a little bit of foul trouble, Nikki Casey too.

“(Maudie Orler) and (Cara Sweeney) were able to come in during that foul trouble situation off the bench and give us a lot of energy.”

Orler and Sweeney chipped in with four points apiece.

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The aforementioned foul trouble put the Lady Colonials in a bit of a bind in the 7-6 first. From there, PW put the clamps on taking each subsequent quarter 12-3, 12-3, and 9-2.

Dougherty also praised his team’s defensive effort, particularly on the glass.

“That was probably our best rebounding effort of the season,” he said. “Sometimes we struggle because we’re not a very tall team. I thought the girls came out real physical tonight, boxed out really hard, and really went after every rebound.”

The tone from the Cheltenham side was markedly different, and Cheltenham coach Brendan Nolan was candid about the Lady Panther’s struggles post-game.

“There were times I turned around and said, ‘I have no idea what we’re doing.’ I couldn’t tell what play we were in; it was a mystery to me.”

He cited his team’s lack of aggressive multiple times as a possible culprit for his team’s poor play.

“We just completely lost all assertiveness. Everything we’ve picked up the last few weeks and the improvements we made just disappeared tonight,” he said, a bit exasperated.

“We missed a lot of opportunities to make one morepass for find a place where we could attack from. I don’t know if we just didn’t see it, or again, just lost aggressiveness.”

Dougherty credited a good week of practice to his team’s offensive success.

“The last time we played them, we just weren’t able to find the seams in the zone,” he said, referring to his team’s loss against the Lady Panthers on December 18th. “We practiced really hard yesterday, put in a little bit of a new motion offense to get ready for this game. The girls really saw it today.”

Despite the bad loss, Nolan spoke with a bit of optimism about bouncing back for their next game, saying, “I don’t know who was out there playing in our jerseys, but we’ve just got to believe. This isn’t us.”

Dougherty doesn’t think he’ll have trouble keeping his team focused after this big win. He said, “We start five seniors. As it stands, we’re 7-8. We have seven games to go in their careers. They’ve already taken the mantra of ‘Carpe diem’ when we go out to play a game.

“They come out and they know that they want to cherish every game. Getting them focused hasn’t been that big of an issue and I don’t think it’ll be an issue on Friday night.”